Thursday, May 31, 2007

IS SUDAN THE NEXT POWER HOUSE IN AFRICA?

The Land of Cush will soon have a new skyline

The Al-Mogran Development Project is a $4 billion plus development project undertaken by the Alsunut Development Company that seeks to develop several thousand acres in downtown Khartoum along the spot where the White Nile and Blue Nile merge to form the Nile. The discovery of oil in Sudan has provided the Sudanese government with a billion dollar surplus that allows the funding of this project.

Starting in 2004, the project has two main phases:

phase one, the Central Business District development

phase two, the residential estate portion.

The Al-Mogran project, when completed, will produce 11,000,000 square feet of office space, 1,100 villas, housing for 45,000 residents and visitors, and jobs for 60,000 Sudanese. The project, however, has received criticism in light of the continuing Darfur Conflict. Completion is expected by 2014.

The White Nile and the Blue Nile merge. The Al Mogran development will be situated on the peninsula to the bottom-left

IMAGES FROM PARTS OF KHARTOUM SUDAN

Sand Storm

OTHER DEVELOPMENTS COMING UP IN SUDAN

New Khartoum state of the art airport (work has began since october 2006)-Cost US$530 million dollars-Capacity of 7 millions passenger per year-Superficy of 70 km2-Two runaways at the length of 4000 meters and a width of 60 meters-Height of the new airport’s tower will be 58.1 meters-Passenger terminal at an area of 86,000 square meters-Cargo terminal at an area of 40,000 square meters, in addition to a Presidential Terminal at an area of 3,750 meters, and large planes parks and maintenance workshops and other facilities.-Utilities at the new Khartoum Airport will include an international hotel with 300 rooms, a modern conference,hall and a big plane supply center. He added that several services, petroleum stations and markets will be established at the area around the new airport.It will be completed in 2009

Thank you for dropping by Saharan Vibe and for the compliments. I am a member of Afrigator only that I have an invisible logo on the blog.

As for Sudan, there are numerous development initiatives underway in Sudan. The reason some of this initiatives have received dismal attention is largely attributed to the Darfur crisis.

Southern part of Sudan which was equally embroiled in war is now enjoying peace and tranquility. Businesses are being set up, infrastructure development is underway etc all this endeavors are changing the economic landscape within that region.

With more media coverage that is objective on this developments and other aspects of Sudan I believe the country could elicit a much more informed opinion from the global audience. That way they could be better positioned to address the Darfur quagmire.

As for other African countries adopting a similar example, well Sudan is able to engage in such an enormous undertaking because of the huge surplus in the government budget-largely attributed to oil revenues. The proposed development looks so much like Dubai. I don't know much of the details that led to the creation and implementation of this initiative in Sudan. If any one knows please share.

In Africa especially resource rich states what we tend to see is the inefficient use and management of funds, corruption, greed etc Countries like Nigeria, Angola, Sao Tome & Principe I would presume can pull a similar project.

Botswana is one African country that has received numerous accolades for their management of resource revenues generated from diamond mining. Maybe they too could consider taking Gaborone to another level and changing its sky line.

Tanzania too is endowed in mineral resources which attracts a lot of investments. It would be great if there was a simple snap shot database showing how much e.g. Tanzania made and how these funds were utilized.

You are naive to the point of approaching blindness if you cannot (or are perhaps unwilling to) connect the dots between years of marginalization and persecution at the hands of the very same rouge regime you are touting here as an up and coming African power-house and the new development in Khartoum.

This will be nothing more than a playground for Sudan’s conscientiously flexible elite to entertain the representative of multinational corporations while they all become wealthier securing future development and international trade deals.

Are you aware that for years the populations living on oil rich ground in south Sudan were bombed off their lands so their government could exhume the crude beneath the bodies of those not quick enough to escape and all the while strategically deny them access to education and a voice in government? This government has a track record nearing three decades long for conducting scorched-earth campaigns on it’s own people because it could not maintain it’s grip on power and wealth while providing for the needs of it’s people. It was a simple matter of choice and the capacity to live with themselves after.

Now, after years of oil revenues enabling the buildup of “defense” forces designed to suppress the populous, surpluses afford this regime the capacity and therefore opportunity (some might say obligation) to tend to the needs of the destroyed population remaining. Yet they still choose to indulge themselves with a modernity beyond the means of a responsible government in their position, while living with themselves following decades of shameful choices seems within reach on the eve of turning their capitol city into a gated community.

They cannot be praised for this, and the millions of dead, diseased and displaced, whose shortened miserable lives paved the way for this “development” must not be merely a parenthetical footnote. As a documentary photographer, I have lived countless days through the hell, which lies in the wake of nearly two and a half decades of brutal “civil” wars by other means. I have followed in the footsteps of the population of Southern Sudan whose lives lie shattered and strewn across the Central and East African landscape. I have been to Darfur. You should go to the new south Sudan and see the myth of tranquility you’ve heard about.

This development project, multinational corporate boardrooms, and yes Khartoum are the new frontlines of the war threatening to exterminate the precedence of Genocide.

As an artist, I have chosen as a platform for illustration the latest in a series of genocidal positions taken by those governing who would choose the protection of natural resource revenues over that of it’s people.

World actions actions leaders of corrupt nations such as Sudan has forced them to spend the money in their own nations instead of lavishing it overseas.

We should thank the human rights activists for such developments. However their failures to stop genocide and corruption within the leader's nations have not stopped the sufferings and poverty of the citizens of these nations.

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